Wednesday, 26 May 2010

Fickers and F**kers

There was a brief moment of hilarity today when one of our editors picked up a copy of Tolstoy's Gospels in Brief, which according to the book's back cover was one of Ludwig Wittgenstein's favourite books. So much was he in thrall of this book – according to another of our editors – that when he served in the trenches during the Great War he always kept with him two books: one was the manuscript of what was going to be his masterpiece, the Tractatus Logicus-Philosophicus, the other was Tolstoy's take on the Gospels.

What's so funny about this? What is funny is that to corroborate Wittgenstein's endorsement, the publisher has quoted from a letter the philosopher wrote to his friend Ludwig von Ficker…

I don't know if you have any German, but I'll let you imagine what Ficker means. . . I think I have given you enough clues. . .

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Alessandro Gallenzi is the founder of Alma Books and Alma Classics, and the successor of John Calder at the helm of Calder Publications. As well as being a literary publisher, he is a translator, a poet, a playwright and a novelist. His collection of poetry Modern Bestiary - Ars Poetastrica was published in 2005 to critical acclaim and his novel Bestseller was published in 2010.

Alma Books publishes from fifteen to twenty titles a year, mostly contemporary literary fiction, taking around sixty per cent of its titles from English-language originals, while the rest are translations from other languages such as French, Spanish, Italian, German and Japanese. Alma Books also publishes two or three non-fiction titles each year.

Alma Classics aims to publish the greatest recognized masterpieces of all time, from every literature and genre, but also tries to redefine and enrich the classics canon by promoting unjustly neglected works of enduring significance. Recently Alma Classics launched Overture Publishing, which provides a series of beautifully produced opera and classical-music guides which are unique in the English language.